Our Interim Product Managers or Product Leaders cover parental leaves, scale your Product Management team quickly, or lead key initiative while bridging the gap until a full-time employee joins.
We onboard fast, align teams and deliver outcomes.
capabilities
It takes on average 3-9 months to find the right Product Manager to hire as a full-time employee. In the meantime, someone needs to fill in the void: drive cross-functional initiatives, decide what is worth building, and help the development team deliver the best outcomes. We fill this gap, deliver great outcomes and smoothly onboard the new hire to set them up for succes.
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Cover parental leaves for 3-12 months. Or unstaffed permanent positions as it takes 3-9 months/role. Get temporary help to drive product discovery and delivery for a deadline and create big impact in a short time.
Discover the next impactful initiative or product, market and user research to business model, etc.
Run a low or no-code pilot/MVP: discover, ideate, align the team, run and kick-off the next iteration.
Coach your Product Management team to reach their full potential. Create and streamline processes from 0 to 1 including Product Operations and Program Management. When needed restructure the team or scale.
our services
We delivered great outcomes at different stages and in a variety of industries: mobility, car sharing, e-commerce, health tech (including regulatory compliance), wellness, travel, edtech, cybersecurity, real estate, logistics, social media, cybersecurity, IoT, AdTech, FinTech (credit cards, invoicing, royalties), prop tech, HR, tech. We've covered all areas from product growth, conversion, retention, payments, platform, complex integrations and data products.
We create product roadmaps from post product market fit, to market expansion, scaling and beyond. We drive product vision and shape product strategy. If not already there, we'll set up the right North Star Metric, OKRs and KPIs for each team to create significant impact.
Comprehensive understanding of the state of the art web and mobile technologies including working with high traffic iOS and Android apps. We have Technical Product Management experience and also worked with highly regulated products (Medtech, FinTech).
We balance intuition and the scientific approach to make effective and timely product choices. We're hands-on, data-driven and experimental. We collaborate with other roles to uncover opportunities, test hypotheses and build lovable and successful products.
We often work with cross-functional teams (e.g., Engineering, User Experience, Design, Program Management, Product Operations) teams. We're comfortable with Agile (Scrum, SaFe, Kanban), Shape Up and above all, very pragmatic.
Most of our clients are scale-ups or larger. We're used to aligning numerous stakeholders for complex hight traffic products. Our excellent communication skills help us convince senior leadership and motivate large distributed teams to execute timely on our initiatives.
We have led go-to-market strategies and teams, for digital products from MVPs to product market fit, scaling and hyper-growth phases. We conduct market research and competitive analysis, uncover market opportunities and help your product's success.
Our experienced interim Product Managers onboard fast as we are accustomed to switching teams and projects. This makes us more agile and capable of handling onboarding easily while bringing in a fresh perspective and new ideas.
Hire our interim PMsViktoria joined us at Freeletics as an interim Product Manager while we were still searching to fill a full-time candidate and I couldn't be happier with how quickly she onboarded and jumped into the new challenges she was facing!
Head of Product at Freeletics
In just a few months Mirela managed to ship many experiments and iterations in a mature, core revenue flow, some failing some succeeding, influencing future product strategy at Scout
Head of Product at Immobilen Scout 24
All our PMs are full time with Product People and on a permanent contract. They went through a 7-step hiring process including hands-on assessment and reference checks. After joining Product People, they all receive extensive mentoring by senior colleagues and the founder, yearly learning budget and paid learning days.
All our PMs benefit from each others diverse backgrounds, exchange knowledge via sharing sessions and hands-on coworking, and tap into 100+ years of our combined PM experience.
Our Interim Product Managers onboard fast as we are accustomed to switching teams, product and industries every 3-6 months and have a playbook which we update with each new client engagement.
case studies
client testimonials
Mirela and her team at Product People played an invaluable role in supporting the scaling of the Ometria product team. I was impressed how all the team were all comfortable adapting to our processes and ways of working and were able to quickly get up to speed and have an impact.
VP at Ometria
I was lucky to have Product People supporting on driving the discovery on a new and complex opportunity. Product People worked themselves into the topic with ease and showed a high sense of ownership to connect with all relevant stakeholders and deliver results independently.
Principal Product Manager at Zalando
Product People representative was acting as the Interim Product Manager at Tier Mobility GmbH when I joined. They were driving setting up a new product area and brought a lot of structure for the team and stakeholders.
Head of Product at Tier Mobility
Client testimonials
Product People team member proved to be an effective Product Manager, taking on product leadership for two small teams, mobile and web, working in fast iterations with a designer, giving transparency over their pipeline.
Product Manager at Scout24
Product People joined us at Freeletics as an Interim Product Manager while we were still searching to fill a full-time candidate and I couldn't be happier with how quickly they've onboarded and jumped into the new challenges they were facing!
Head of Product at Freeletics
Product People team member showed great empathy, an eye for detail, as well as a very structured approach to product management – all assets, which I consider crucial to success in the role. Moreover, manages their product in an analytical, outcome-driven way and with strong, effective communication towards stakeholders.
Product Lead at WeShare
I had the pleasure to work with Product People team member during my tenure at Cosuno and saw them as experienced and seasoned, capable of both handling various business stakeholders and providing a clear scope for the team at work.
Engineering Manager at Cosuno
Client testimonials
I recently worked with Product People on a consultative project where they've advised our team on applying a product lifecycle approach to the development of a new digital product concept. I found them to be super knowledgeable, but at the same time, very pragmatic.
Senior Director Global Analytics and Consulting at HAVI
I worked with Product People whilst I was VP Product at Ometria and they joined us as an Interim Product Manager. They were a real asset to the team in the 4 or 5 months we worked together. Product People were hard working, reliable and very detail oriented.
VP Product at Ometria
I had been working with Product People representatives for about 4 months, but this time is more than enough to evaluate them as a hard-working, high-motivated and self-organized person. During this short time period, Product People brought many improvements in the working process we have.
Engineering Manager at Omio
Product People managed to onboard to our team and organize and prioritize our backlog in record time. They helped a lot with shielding the team with constant requests from external and internal partners and helped put in place a process to make prioritization easier and let the team be more focused.
Engineering Manager at Omio
our team
COMMUNITY EVENTS
Meet our product management community of 15,000+ Product People. Our weekly live-streamed events feature speakers from Google, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify, Reddit, Tinder, Bumble, Microsoft, Delivery Hero, HelloFresh, Zalando, Ada Health, Headspace, Grover, Uber, Volkswagen, Daimler, Stripe, Klarna, N26, Zoom and more.
We're usually available to start in ASAP, meaning 3-10 bussines day from the moment our contract is signed. In some cases, it was the next day.
We bill time and material, our day rate depends on the seniority of the client facing representative, contract length (3+ months), allocation (2-4 days/week), volume, and complexity. We're happy to extend an offer once we understand the scope of work better. Schedule a call
ASAP Availability: Hiring a full-time employee takes 3-9 months from publishing the job to their first day at your company. We limit our “bus factor” and ensure service continuation without losing knowledge or momentum even if our representatives become unavailable on shot notice (e.g. COVID).
Flexibility without liability: A full time employee comes with a lost of responsibility and liability. We're a service provider and our services have a 4 weeks notice to allow for a smooth handover if your plans change. Unlike layoffs, there's no team morale impact as we always aim to exit on a high note and leave things in order. Many of our clients have returned t a later date thanks to this approach.
Mitigate Opportunity cost: A development team in Europe costs €500,000-€1,000,000/year with overhead. Do a back-of-napkin calculation with the opportunity cost from not launching a critical initiative the right way, or having them spend time on low value initiatives. There are also harder to quantify things like the team morale and the communication breakdown that happens when a Product Manager is missing for too long.
Talented and ambitious Product Managers join us to accelerate their career and see behind the curtain of Europe instead potentially stagnating in one company, sector and working on only one product. With us they work on a wide range of B2C and B2B products in many industries, and company sizes from series A+ to publicly listed. We through hyper-growth, downturns, and all of life’s challenges.
They also join to work closely with other high-caliber individuals and learn from them. At Product People, we focus on hiring for skills rather than for CVs or past experience. We have an extensive hiring process which you can learn about in our candidate interview guide. When with us our team has comprehensive 360 feedback cycles every 3 months not only on client work but also with internal initiatives. We actively promote people.
We take vacations seriously and also allow our PMs to recharge via paid sabbaticals and optional 4-day workweeks. However, we take measures to provide uninterrupted service to our clients. All our PMs are accompanied by an Associate PM (complimentary for the client), who acts as a backup to limit the “bus factor”.An Associate PM can step up for covering short vacations and sick leaves. If a longer leave is planned by a leading PM, we onboard and train another PM of the same level or higher to take the work over while keping the momentum. Any time invested in handovers is complimentary to the client and we will make sure that client's team doesn't experience any overhead.
At Product People, we aim to minimize interim PM risk for the companies by doing two important things - maintaining a rigorous hiring process and conducting internal trainings. Firstly, all the PMs at Product People are full-time employees of the company, and have gone through a 5-step recruiting process that tests their product management skills and knowledge, as well as their soft skills. We do not care about the years of PM experience as long as you show great product sense, strong communication skills, and mental flexibility. Secondly, we train our PMs internally to adhere to the best PM practices as well as how to be successful as an interim PM and onboard amazingly fast. These two approaches help our PMs be very strong not only as PMs in general, but also specifically as interim PMs who need to start creating impact within the first two weeks and who know how to deal with demotivated teams and difficult stakeholders. As all of our PMs have worked in multiple industries, they are not afraid of dealing with new topics and, moreover, can always lean on the rest of the Product People team for advice and guidance.
We take vacations seriously and also allow our PMs to recharge via paid sabbaticals and optional 4-day workweeks. However, we take measures to provide uninterrupted service to our clients. All our client facing representatives have a Group PM or Senior PM monitoring the work behind the scene and a PM/Associate PM, who acts as a backup to limit the “bus factor”. Another representative steps up for covering short vacations and sick leaves. For longer leaves we onboard and train an equivalent replacement at no cost to you. Any time invested in handovers is complimentary to the client and we will make sure this is transition is seamless for your internal teams.
1. Interim Product Manager (or Product Leader)
Parental leaves or extended sick leave covers usually take 3-9 months. We can also bridge the gap on permanent position while you’re hiring the for the right fit (3-12 months/role). We recommended a two weeks overlap with the leaver for Product People to have a smooth handover and minimize knowledge loss.
We can also tackle important and urgent initiatives that the current product team doesn't have capacity for: drive product discovery and/or delivery to meet a deadline and create big impact in 3 months.
2. Product Coach or Consultant (or Program Manager/Product Ops)
Coach your product management team appraise skills and set up personal development plans. Create and streamline processes/programs from 0 to 1, in hyper-growth or at scale.
3. Product Discovery
Discover the next impactful initiative or product: market and user research to business model etc. Or Run a low or no-code pilot/MVP: discover, ideate, align the team, run and kick-off the next iteration.
Yes, we are happy to fill in Product Leadership roles (CPO, Director of Product, VP Product, Head of Product, Lead PM) on the interim basis to support your company leaders to take a leave (parental, sabbatical, health-related) or while you are recruiting. Our Group PMs and Senior PMs have 6-10 years of Product Management experience as well as extensive experience in coaching and mentoring junior PMs. They can also support your organization in defining PM leveling structure, PM development plans, hiring and onboarding strategy based on hundreds of PM interviews we have conducted internally and having trained over 50 PMs within Product People team.
We can help up-skill your team through structured workshops, Product Management Bootcamp and individualized coaching. For topics or activities we don't cover we have trusted partners and courses we can refer you to.
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